November 30, 2007 - Red-eye to the Khuduu!

Straustetyia!

I don’t actually know how you spell “hello” in Russian, that’s just me sounding it out from what I hear all the time from the kids on the streets. This is in honor of my new location, a few kilometers shy of the Russian border.

I’m in the khuduu! I’m in the khuduu and it’s wonderful! Sukhbaatar is pretty small, but I just can’t get over how much cleaner it is than in the city. The buildings actually look like they had some of idea of what they were doing. Everything is much better taken care of. There is significantly less trash strewn around. The people are friendlier. Some of the dogs wear bandanas. Pretty much it’s just like the American countryside, but a little colder.

Last Saturday morning I got paired up with Sister Bayarmaa from Chingeltei Branch. I spent six months of my mission going to church in the same building with Chingeltei Branch and we never once saw each other, but that’s okay. That’s what new beginnings are for.

That first day we stormed the zakh [open air market] with the other khuduu-bound new missionaries and their companions and grabbed all kinds of knitted pants, hats, gloves, skirts, bags, and other missionary junk. They best part was that that morning the first big snowstorm of the year started in and the whole day was just white white white. Plus, you gotta love trying on skirts in 0 degree weather in the snow.

We were supposed to meet our district leader, Elder Humphries, his new trainee, Elder Hardman, and Elder Khosbayar (of Enkhtaivan Branch fame. What is it with me and serving with former branch missionaries?) at 6:30 at the Bayanzurkh building before we all headed for the train station to catch the red-eye to Selenge. We had a little bit of extra time so Sister Bayarmaa and I headed over to the Fujifilm to develop some of her pictures from the temple trip. At the beginning of the month all of the new Mongolian missionaries and a ton of families all made the big trip to Hong Kong to go to the temple. There were about 40 people total and it truly was an historical event. We were right next door so we decided to hop over to Sukhbaatar Square so I could say goodbye to Chinggis and UB for the next little while. I would have cried but then the tears freezing to my cheek just would have been unbearable.

We met the elders on time and after they hailed us a taxi and loaded up our incredibly overweight baggage (trains are great! No weight limits!), they sent us off. Our instructions were just to wait wherever the taxi dropped us off and they would come get us and load our bags. The train was to leave at 7:30 pm, so we were feeling pretty secure as we pulled up to the station at 7:08. We fended off cart-guy after cart-guy, informing them that we were waiting on our three personal valets. So we waited, and we waited, and waited…and waited. No elders. We started to get a little worried. There’s only one main train station in UB, right? It was 7:22. We looked around nervously but all we saw were civilians. We contemplated moving, but that was slightly out of the question for two winky little sister missionaries and the 500 kilos of luggage we were guarding. Needless to say, at 7:29 we were run upon from behind by the elders screaming, “Grab your stuff! Now now now! Let’s go!” The fine young gentlemen grabbed all the little stuff and left me to haul/slide the biggest suitcase and myself all the way to the other end of the platform…on ice. It was really cool.

When we got to the car there were hordes of eager-to-help (read: eager to rip off the Americans) busboys who graciously chucked all our stuff into our compartment. When we finally sat down one of the guys popped his head in, expecting his pay. “The white guy with the curly hair in the next car over will pay,” I says with a sister missionary-appropriate level of maliciousness. We shut the compartment door and settled in for the 8 ½ hour ride.

At 4:10 Sunday morning we stumbled off the train to be greeted by Elder and Sister Thusen, the couple missionaries serving in Sukhbaatar, Elder Gantugs, a swell missionary who also happens to be the branch president, and a handful of branch missionaries. An hour later we had arrived at our apartment unloaded some stuff, thrown on our pjs, and were sleeping like baby kittens.

Theeeeen 6:30 rolls around and the Lord’s missionaries are up again, ready to do what needs to be done. We went to church that morning, met the branch, got stared at a lot (they’re used to only having elders) and in general felt very welcomed. Our apartment is sweet! They totally hooked us up with all new stuff in a new apartment. We felt like newlyweds after a bridal shower opening up all our new utensils and dish sets and washing machine and toaster and such.

Our work is coming along, and I’ll tell you more about it next week when I have time. For now, know that all is well. No pictures for now, and maybe not ever while I’m here unless I can find a computer with a USB port.

P.S. The night sky is very starry, but not all that different. I see the Big Dipper quite readily, and it looks just like it does in America. I was hoping it would be upside down or backwards or something more exotic, but it’s the same. Oh well!